


say it again and again and again

by parrishes_and_pitches



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: First "I love you", First Time, Fluff, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, POV Ronan Lynch, adam parrish is a smooth motherfucker, first post kinda nervous, idk how to tag shit tbh, it's soft okay, ronan uses his words for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 10:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrishes_and_pitches/pseuds/parrishes_and_pitches
Summary: a quiet night at the barns. ronan says something new, both do something new, and young love is at its richest and most vulnerable.





	say it again and again and again

**Author's Note:**

> what's up chups here's my first post ever. hope i make a good first impression! i'm particularly proud of this piece, because after writing it, i was able to pull myself out of a writing slump that i'd been in for several years. needless to say, this guy is pretty important to me.  
> anyways prepare for pretentious writing style and softness. idrk what else to say so i'm just gonna let y'all get to it have fun

it was one of those nights.

a night for remembering, a night for forgetting. a night of knowing and learning. a night of finding the new within the old.

some of ronan’s favorite nights were nights like these. nights of fresh twilights washing the grounds of the barns in starlight and crickets chirping and laying on the couch with adam, the echo of that holy laughter ringing in his ears.

ronan barely even remembered what he’d said, just that it had caused that laugh to spill from adam’s lips. the one that was reckless, unafraid, too loud to be polite and too free to care. ronan thought he loved adam most when he was this way. unbridled. maybe it was because in moments like these, it felt like he understood adam more than ever. maybe it was because in moments like these, he barely understood him at all. adam unrestrained was a different creature, beautiful and intangible.

adam lifted his head off of ronan’s chest, laughter still traceable in his smile and the relaxed position of his fair brows, and fixed ronan with those blue eyes, so fiery and focused. intensity that was a different breed than ronan’s but the same species. “what?” he asked, his voice soft with a slight drawl. the typical virginian drawl that only came out when adam was too at ease to notice or care. the one that ronan thought was adorable, not that he would ever admit it.

“what?” ronan responded. he wouldn’t typically describe himself as soft in any sense, but the atmosphere of the night and the reality of his arms in a careful loop around adam’s waist demanded something a bit atypical.

“you were just staring at me.”

“who says i was staring? you just caught me looking.”

“right,” adam said, laying his head down on ronan’s chest again. the motion seemed casual enough, but ronan knew that adam had chosen this position deliberately to present his hearing ear. it was a gesture that said _i’m listening._

“so what if i was staring?” ronan relented after a moment. “i like looking at you, parrish. isn’t that common knowledge at this point?”

“i guess so. i just like hearing you admit it.”

there was something so smug in that remark, and ronan could just see the smile on his face without even looking at him. ronan let out a laugh, a quick huff of a thing that he knew adam could feel reverberating in his chest. “little shit.”

“no you,” adam said

“wow. harsh, parrish.”

“you were staring at me like that for a solid month before we started dating. i get to say that.”

“no idea what you’re talking about.” ronan trailed his finger up and down the length of adam’s back, tracing the ridges of his spine through his cotton t-shirt. he was acutely aware of adam’s chest against his own, expanding and contracting with every breath he took. they were sharing a chest cavity, the same breaths, the same heartbeat.

adam shifted. he was now facing ronan directly, his tanned arms folded delicately across ronan’s chest, his graceful hands resting laxly at his elbows. their faces were only a few inches apart. ronan could count the freckles that sprayed adam’s nose, if he wanted to.

_one, two._

“maybe you didn’t think i noticed the glances,” adam said.

_three, four._

“but it was like a split second of television static.” adam’s fingers were a whisper against the hollow of ronan’s throat, where his pulse thundered. no matter how used to this ronan got, his blood would always be in relentless, roaring rebellion.

_five, six._

“i would have had to be completely blind not to see it.” adam didn’t seem to really be hearing what he was saying. it was that glorious lack of restraint, just then, that told ronan this was real.

_seven, eight._

“you’re impossible not to notice, ronan.” because adam parrish was a paradigm of self-control. something that ronan could barely comprehend, but understood enough to know the beauty of adam parrish letting go with him.

all of this was real.

_nine, ten._

“i love you, adam.”

silence.

a shared heartbeat that stuttered.

a shared breath that was held.

a new arrangement of words that ronan had never said before.

ronan did not shy away from his words (he was never one to do so), nor from the look that adam was now giving him. but the machinery that made him function seemed to have momentarily stalled. ronan lynch usually did not care much for words. everything he felt was expressed through the slam of a car door, or the harsh slant of his brow, or the careful hand on adam’s shoulder when he passed. whatever he did articulate often came out with sharp teeth or blunt edges.

and it always came out true. both boys knew with unwavering certainty that what he’d said was authentic. and they both knew that the words had gone between them unsaid for the three months they’d been dating. never spoken, never acknowledged, but always present.

and yet, ronan knew that saying the words out loud was something entirely different than simply knowing them.

adam clearly knew it too. his eyes were slightly widened, locked on ronan’s. he was perfectly still save for his heartbeat racing against ronan’s chest.

“you…”

adam knew just as well as ronan that this was love. he had to. because he knew that ronan didn’t do casual, and he had pursued this anyway.

but adam, ronan knew, had always been of the mind that love was a privilege. love was a rarity, a luxury that he, for a long time, never believed he deserved. but _dear god_ , if he didn’t deserve it, then who did?

ronan had always been aware of the significance that this relationship held for adam, and he knew that it could be delicate work at times. both boys were stubborn and temperamental in different ways, and somewhere in the back of his mind, ronan had worked hard to avoid overstepping adam’s boundaries and breaking what they had.

now, ronan could feel that he stood on the cusp of the line. he held adam’s gaze, not backing down from his words, but not pushing them any further, either.

“you love me,” adam said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“that’s what i said.” ronan did not need to say that he meant it.

“you love me…”

“you deaf in both ears now?” ronan reached up and softly flicked adam’s hearing ear. this gesture, so small and boyish, diffused the tension between them, and adam laughed softly. “yeah, i do.”

“i just…” adam blew out a breath and leaned closer to him, resting his forehead against ronan’s. his hair lightly tickled his skin. “i can’t say i was expecting that.”

“i try to keep you on your toes.”

adam laughed again. that laugh. “it works.”

“so, you gonna say it back, parrish?” ronan murmured, a teasing cadence to his voice as he lifted a brow.

adam leaned in without a word, but ronan pulled back, just slightly. a sharp smile playing at his lips.

a small groan under adam’s breath. “don’t be impossible, lynch.”

“say it back,” ronan whispered. it was not a challenge. “tell me you love me, parrish.”

“say my name.” adam’s hands came to rest at either side of ronan’s neck. “say my name, and i’ll say it back.”

“adam.” they shared a breath. they shared a heartbeat.

adam’s eyes met ronan’s, two different breeds of blue. “ronan lynch,” he murmured, “i love you.” another breath. and then, again, “i love you.”

and then their lips were slanted against each other.

ronan could not pinpoint the exact moment the kiss went from tenderness to urgency. he could not recall, exactly, when adam had removed ronan’s shirt. he was sure of rapid breathing and adam’s fingers digging into his back and the only important thing in the world being _get closer to adam._

adam, adam, _adam._ there was something glorious about it.

ronan had somehow come to be sitting upright, hands returned to adam’s spine. adam’s lips were restless against his. and then somehow ronan was standing, holding adam up and against him by bracing his hands on his thighs. adam was surprised but not entirely unpleased, evident in the vise of his legs around ronan’s waist and his firm grip at the back of ronan’s neck.

there was something so typical in the way ronan and adam were together in that moment, the way adam nipped at ronan’s upper lip, the way ronan felt aware of every fiber of adam’s jeans beneath his hands, though it didn’t feel exactly the same as any other night of kisses and touches. perhaps that was the novelty of words, the simple magic they worked.

ronan went to the stairs, still holding adam, kissing him, and began the ascent. as if it were the only natural way to continue. when they reached the top, ronan stumbled a little in his urgency, and adam’s back bumped against the wall with a dull thud. adam broke the kiss just enough to laugh.

that laugh.

and then they were in ronan’s room (technically the room was both of theirs, whenever adam stayed at the barns), and adam’s feet were on the floor and his back was against the wall again, deliberately this time, and there was a rush of clothes being removed and kisses being stolen between each shed article. ronan considered each new explorable inch of adam’s tawny skin a blessing. he did not take this blessing for granted.

it was the two boys stumbling to bed in each other’s arms, and it was ronan not having to ask if adam was okay with this, because the answer was in his kisses and his grip that said _right now, we are each others’._ it was them tangling clumsily together among the sheets, and it was adam laughing as ronan pretended he wasn’t struggling with his first time putting on a condom.

that _laugh._

it wasn’t perfect. adam winced. ronan had to exert a surprising amount of willpower not to embarrass himself immediately. he leaned in to kiss adam, and their foreheads knocked together.

but somehow, impossibly, it was also perfect. the two found a rhythm together. a rhythm in itself flawed, but one that worked for them. the mechanics of it were not important to either of them. the way their bodies worked together was not seamless, and neither expected it to be so, but their understanding of one another was. all that mattered was that understanding, and the desire to explore one another. ronan discovered a spot just beneath the left corner of adam’s jaw that made him gasp and grip ronan’s shoulders whenever he kissed it. adam’s fingers wandered over ronan’s back, journeying along the memorized paths of whorls and edges and knots of the tattoo that encompassed the landscape of his skin.

there was the sense that this could last for an eternity. in a way it did, in the way that a piece of ronan would now always belong to adam, and a piece of adam would always belong to ronan.

this little eternity, so anticipated and so idealized, was messy. clumsy. a bit too loud (on ronan’s part). a bit too much fingernails digging into skin (on adam’s part). it was as many first times were.

ronan wouldn’t have had it any other way.

 

* * *

 

 

hours later, or perhaps minutes later, or perhaps seconds later, or perhaps when no time at all had passed, adam and ronan lay on their backs in bed. their hands were loosely entwined, and both stared up at the dark ceiling. ronan lay completely naked, while adam had only the thin cotton sheet strewn haphazardly across his hips.

“not half bad, parrish,” ronan said, his voice loud in contrast to the previous comfortable silence.

“yeah?”

“yeah. maybe, like, only twenty percent bad.”

that made adam laugh. ronan knew it would. and good _god,_ that laugh. it would make him do something stupid one of these days, he just knew it.

“i wouldn’t say twenty,” adam mused. “ten, at most.”

“agree to disagree.”

“i don’t know, ronan. didn’t sound like you were disagreeing when you nearly came in the first twenty seconds.”

“sounded like you were disagreeing in the first ten seconds when i-”

“alright, alright,” adam relented. “agree to disagree, then.”

ronan grinned and turned his head to look at adam, his elegant profile highlighted by the moonlight streaming in through the window. “say it again.”

adam was facing him now. “what? agree to disagree?”

“no, einstein. what you said earlier.”

“oh.” a pause. then, with an easy smile, “you said it first.”

“the fuck does that matter?”

“just putting it on record.”

“whatever. just say it, parrish.”

“i love you, ronan.”

“now say it again.”

“i love you.” adam propped himself up on one elbow to look at ronan, though he made sure their fingers were still linked. “what is this obsession with those words all of a sudden? just this afternoon you told me to go choke on a dick.”

ronan raised an eyebrow. “don’t think that would be so bad. long as you stayed local.”

adam rolled his eyes. “don’t be gross, ronan. answer me.”

ronan supposed it was the freedom with which adam now used the expression. the rare freedom that ronan so adored on him. adam sounded so natural when he said it, like god had shaped his lips for the sole purpose of telling ronan that he loved him. every other function was secondary.

he gave a shiteating grin. “i just like hearing you admit it.”

the pillow adam hit him with was sudden and delightful. it reminded him of what they were, a couple of boys who loved each other, and loved enjoying one another. “bastard,” adam said.

ronan laughed. “hey, use your fucking words, parrish.” he tackled adam, with perhaps a bit too much gusto. the two toppled off the bed, laughing and wrestling like a couple of kids. ronan held down adam’s wrist to prevent another pillow attack and cut off a couple curses by kissing him softly. “use them to say it again.”

“i’ll say it as many times as you want,” adam said, still bubbling with quiet laughter. beautiful. “just as long as you say it back.”

ronan lynch usually did not care much for words.

but he figured perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if he did.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hello again friends! thanks so much for reading!  
> i would just like to point out something that was completely and totally intentional that i definitely didn't just now notice: adam and ronan are never not touching in this piece. you're welcome. :)  
> also shout out to grace, who i know is reading this rn, for encouraging me to write this piece and get my groove back. ILY BITCH


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